Cape Town, South Africa: “To me it’s a no-brainer. If you can put the fruit into a 40ft reefer box that’s as close as possible to the tree, then you stand a much better chance of controlling the atmosphere inside and controlling the cold chain,” says Andy Connell in a Produce Business UK report.

Fitting with this philosophy, the South African fruit industry veteran has been sending fruit by rail from the country’s interior to its ports since 1998.

At first this practice was “upsetting the old school”, but after joining Dole South Africa in 2007 he was able to convince the multinational to start up a rail-shipped fruit programme of its own.??”Dole has been leading the rail development in South Africa for the last seven years. They are totally committed and doing a very good job,” says Connell.